Most days pass by with the same easy-going feeling. I wake up, feed my girls, drop Keira off at daycare, work-work-work, have dinner with my family, goof around with my girls, kiss them goodnight, and go to bed. The routine has a familiar rhythm to it, that comfy sensation of family and home.

Today is Tuesday. 8:00am. I heard Keira's voice over the baby monitor, crawled out of bed to warm up some milk, and crawled into her bed while she guzzled her usual morning drink. After a quick change of diaper and clothes, we puttered into the kitchen to discuss our breakfast options. Oatmeal? Cereal? Waffle? Toast? The choices are pretty much always the same. Keira chose toast, and I sat her down at the table to a plate of scrambled eggs, wheat toast, and strawberry jam. She munched away, while I tiptoed around a soundly sleeping Ellie in order to get dressed.

9:15am. Keira proudly put on her own socks and shoes ("I do! I do!"), and we headed out the door. On the way to daycare, Keira insisted that I sing "Under the Sea". That's been her latest craze, aside from what she calls the jungle song (the Jungle Book's "Bare Necessities"). After four back-to-back renditions of mommy-singing-like-Sebastian-the-crab, we pulled into the school parking lot, hopped out of the car, and strolled inside, Keira's hand holding mine.

9:45am. Much to my surprise, Keira's head teacher and the daycare director were waiting in the lobby. "Kathy, do you have a few minutes? Can we talk to you after you drop off Keira?" I was puzzled. Had we not paid our bill on time? Did Keira misbehave? Was a teacher quitting? I ushered Keira into the classroom and came back out as quickly as possible, curious as to what was going on.

The director asked me to join her in the office. Uh-oh...Keira must be in big trouble. What if she's been expelled?! What could she have DONE??? I sat down, anxious, as the director closed the door.

"We have some truly unfortunate news..." As the story unraveled, I found myself in complete disbelief. The mother of one of Keira's classmates had been brutally murdered over the weekend, and the father had been arrested as a suspect. What? I wasn't sure I had heard...what I actually heard. As the director explained that Keira's classmate was in protective services, that everyone was understandably upset, that the school wanted to be the first to tell me before I read it in the news, all I could think was...what?

I mumbled something about the horror of the situation, about offering to do whatever we could to be helpful to the family, and then walked out of the office, out the front doors, and back to my car. Sitting there, staring at my steering wheel, my mind was tumbling. Could this really have happened? This little child...in one weekend he lost both his mom and his dad and was now in the hands of strangers. We saw him every day, as he and Keira were always the last two kids playing together at pick-up time. We joked about the way he said, "Peace out!" instead of good-bye, something his dad had taught him. He came to Keira's 2nd birthday party just nine days ago, and happily played with giant bouncy balls and rode on the choo-choo train. They were just another happy family, just like ours. Just like ours...people we KNOW. It was simply inconceivable.

Who was going to explain to this boy what had happened? How could he possibly understand? It's a struggle to tell Keira she can't see a rainbow anytime she wants, or I don't have strawberries in the fridge right now, only apples. I couldn't wrap my mind around the truth, much less imagine a child doing the same. How scared he must be, how confused and alone he must feel, how terrifying to be so frightened and to lack any of the tools to deal with or express those feelings.

As I sit here now, I am simply in shock, profoundly disturbed shock. A dark roiling irrational fear churns inside, and I have no idea what to do. I only want to clutch my babies to me, to hold them tightly while Felix stands guard, to tell them the world is a loving place and that our home is still the safe comfortable place it always was...I just want that back.